SSSSSSS (1973)

A college student (pre-"Battlestar Galactica" Dirk Benedick) is hired to be the new assistant to a local ophiologist (Strother Martin).  Unfortunately, the doctor is crazier than Dr. Frankenstein on poisonous toad puss and dreams of turning humans into snakes...literally.  Starting with his new assistant! Yikesssssss!

At first, Dirk is happy with his job and even enamored with the doctor's nerdy daughter, but then things take a dark turn when the doctor starts giving him injections (under the false pretense that they will help build up his immunity to snake poison), but in fact, he's pumping poor Dirk up with some experimental bullshit that slowly turns him into a sssssssnake! The slow behavioral transformation and eventual physical transformation was fun to watch, but I had a hard time believing that Dirk's character was so oblivious to what was happening.

The story sounds ssssssstupid and it kinda is, but Strother Martin's performance is truly disturbing and he easily carries the film into Worth Watching territory. I do wish the movie had been just a little more risque though. Example: the leaves covering up the skinny dipper's nudity. This is a horror movie, if you're too goddamn chicken to show a sexy naked butt cheek then the audience knows there's not going to be any violence worth a damn on the horizon. Oh well, that's my main gripe.

Overall, the movie was better than I expected and I'd watch it again, but just remember this is an early 70's studio-backed "horror" movie, so don't expect anything too outrageousssssss.

Somebody should make a sequel to this film and give it 14 s' instead of 7. SSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I like how in the description section of this ad, they misspell the title of the film.

THE ISLAND (1980)

STORMY NIGHT (2005)

Caught in a violent thunderstorm a young goat, Mei, is separated from his friends and takes shelter in an old barn. A little later somebody else comes in the barn, but it's too dark to see who it is. Mei is scared and believing that it's another goat he starts talking to the stranger. But the stranger isn't a goat, it's a wolf! His name is Gabu and he thinks the stranger is a fellow wolf so they keep taking. By the time the storm ends they are friends and even agree to meet the next day in front of the barn for lunch. There secret password to recognize each other is "stormy night". When they meet face to face the next day they are both shocked, but the bond they built the night before is strong and over time their friendship becomes stronger and stronger.

It'd be cruel to tell you anymore. The story is filled with lots of cute moments, but it's also pretty serious. The animation is simple, but very beautiful and I thought it fit the story well. Very sweet film and it deserves a bigger audience (like maybe an official Blu-Ray release here in America) so I say check it out!

I DRINK YOUR BLOOD (1971)

"Let it be known, sons and daughters, that Satan was an acidhead."

This is one hell of a movie. The wacky as all get out story is about eight Satan-loving hippies who wander into a small town (more like a few houses and a store) and start raising Hell. After they brutalize a young woman and drug an old man, the old's man's grandson gets revenge by killing a rabid dog, putting the dog's rabies infected blood into some meat pies and the selling them to the hippies. Later that night, the hippies start foaming at the mouth and go completely batshit crazy. At first they start attacking each other, but then their violence spreads and some construction workers get infected and go on a rampage attacking everything.

For being 50+ years old, I DRINK YOUR BLOOD has more blood and violence than I expected (it was one of the first movies to get an "X" rating based on violence), but while it might have shocked audiences back in 1970 it's so low-budget and the special effects are so amateurish that it's impossible to take it seriously nowadays. That doesn't mean it's not an entertaining film, because it definitely is. As far as trash cinema goes this movie is a classic. The pace is very quick and I liked how it never dwelled on one theme for too long: at first there's the hippie Satan cult, then the revenge thing going on and then the revenge for the failed revenge which results in the rabies-infected hippies attacking various people in a wide varieties of ways until finally the miners are infected and suddenly there's a zombie horde assault on a house!

It's probably never going to be inducted into The National Film Registry, but IDYB does deserve a small spot in Cinema history. All fans for horror and trash should check it out.

I'd be interested to know how much of an influence this film was on John Waters.